Wrapping up New Zealand and the beginning of SE Asia

So it has been about 3 months since I last updated this blog. I will try to keep it short because the internet connection I’m on keeps failing me.

At the end of April was mid-semester break (aka a random week off) so Eve and I rented a car and drove up to the north part of the south island. We spent a few days hiking the Able Tasman great walk and afterwards slowly made our way back down the east coast. Along the way we stopped at Kaikoura to go swimming with the dolphins. This wasn’t the typical Mexico style swimming with trained dolphins in a small tank. We swam with about 600 wild dolphins out at sea. It was worth every penny. Interacting with the wild dolphins in their natural habitat and having them swim so close that I could reach out and touch them was surreal. The photos don’t even begin to do justice to what an amazing experience this was (largely because Eve and I got seasick and were sharing a puke bucket all the way back into shore as opposed to taking pictures).

The next set of photos is from a free weekend at the end of May that Eve and I had where we went to Queenstown and Wanaka. While Queenstown is renowned for it’s adrenaline rush extreme sports, Eve and I saved our money and skipped out on the bungee jumping and whatnot, and settled for the luge (a solid kid friendly activity). Overall, it was a relaxing weekend in the mountains before the stress of exams hit.

The majority of May was spent cooped up in the library writing essays and finishing my lab reports. Similarly, June was spent preparing for and writing exams. I finished my last exam on the 17th of June and then spent the next week relaxing with friends and tying up loose ends before heading off to Asia.

On the 24th, Eve and I began our lengthy journey to Thailand. We took a bus up to Christchurch and then a flight to Auckland. We had a day layover there and then we flew to Hong Kong. However, due to a typhoon in Hong Kong, our flight was delayed and we ended up missing our connecting flight to Bangkok. When we finally made it Bangkok, I discovered that my luggage was lost in transit. We then spent the night sleeping awkwardly on a bench in the Bangkok airport awaiting our final flight to Phuket. Eventually, we made it to Phuket a little worse for wear and exhausted, but in one piece and happy for the next leg of our trip to begin.

In Phuket, we opted to avoid the overpriced touristy beaches and stayed in a hostel in town. With the exception of the bed bugs we encountered on our first night and the insane heat and humidity, we had a great time. The majority of our time was spent relaxing on the beach. On one of our days we treated ourselves to a boat trip to Phang Nag Bay. The area is littered with uninhabited islands full of limestone cliffs and caves that we explored in inflatable canoes. One of the islands we explored is known as James Bond island for its role as a landmark in the film "The Man With the Golden Gun".

From Phuket, we slowly made our way up to Chiang Mai via Bangkok and a combo of bus and train (it only took a 6 hour bus ride and about 26 hours of train travel to cover the 1200 km). Needless to say, this journey opened up our eyes as to how tiresome and amazingly slow transportation is in Thailand. Based upon this experience, we ended up staying in Chiang Mai for about a week. This city is composed of the old city encircled by the moat and portions of the old wall that remain from centuries ago. The new city sprawls out from the old city. This city has over 300 wats (aka Buddhist temples). Eve and I ended up spending a day flying through the tree tops of the rain forest in surrounding the hills on a zip line course and spent another day at an elephant sanctuary. At the sanctuary we bathed, fed and played with over 30 elephants that had been rescued from abusive owners. Sadly, the elephants that fuel tourism in Thailand are viewed as livestock by the government and as such are not protected by the law. These animals are tortured into submission so that seats can be strapped on to their backs and tourists can sit in them or so that they can be used in the logging industry. While expensive, this day was both fun and rewarding knowing that we were supporting a good cause.

From Chiang Mai, we again took a combo of bus and train for another 24+ hour travel day and made it to Cambodia. Stepping into Cambodia was like stepping into a whole different world. The country faced great brutality from the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and1980s which destroyed the cultural, economic, social and political life of Cambodia. It is only in the last decade that reconstruction has begun in the country. Accordinly, when we crossed the border we left the paved and ordered streets of Thailand and entered a world of mud, dust and chaos. We ended up attaching ourselves to a Swiss couple and together we took a taxi to Battambang (along with two random guys who the driver picked up). The 1.5 hour ride felt like a death trap. With 7 of us squeezed into the taxi and a driver who spent more time on the leftside of the road, despite the fact that the people drive on the right side of the road in Cambodia, and the insane potholes in the dirt highway we kept on hitting at top speed, I was so thankful to have arrived at our destiation alive.

We spent the following day getting a tour of the countryside on a moto. Yet again, my fear of dying spiked as the driver dawned a helmet (while I was left without one) and we weaved between traffic my knuckles turning white as I struggled to hang on. Once I accepted the danger of the moto, I relaxed and enjoyed the ride. Unlike Thailand which is rather hilly, Cambodia is extremely flat with rice fields covering much of the countryside. We passed by countless villages where the people live in one room wooden shacks with thatched roofs. The poverty here is overwhleming, especially in the rural areas. As we passed by, the children all waved at us with curiosity. The day was a perfect introduction to the country.

From Battambang we are off to Siem Riep by boat where we will visit the Angkor Temples known as the 8th wonder of the world.

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